The Flower Blog

  As some of you may know, I love watching HGTV in my spare time. I think that flowers relate to interior design quite a bit! You are dealing with color pallets, textures, and patterns and more, I’m sure.  I wanted to get a chance to check out an episode of the new show HGTV Great Rooms because I really like the new Design Star Meg Caswell.

Divalicious Kitchen

I tuned into a great episode!  I watched a new episode titled “Divalicious Kitchen”. This was a great episode to me because there were tons of flowers in the design of Meg’s client’s kitchen. Not fresh flowers though. I think she should have had a small vase of flowers to tie everything together instead of a carafe of water with lime slices. Meg used a floral pattern window treatment that was bright and fun. She also used a mid-century chandelier that she repainted and kind of looked like it had a flower feel. But my most favorite part of the design was a wall sculpture of flowers she commissioned a local artist to do! It was amazing and beautiful! I tried to find a picture of it but couldn’t which is too bad because it was the best part of the kitchen. So, I guess you will have to tune into HGTV to see this great design!  The picture I did find is just an example of decorative flowers for a wall but this is not nearly as cool as what is seen on the show!

Something More...

IF Meg had added a small bouquet to her design, I think it may have looked something like Baroque Garden.  This is a small cube filled with gerbera daisies, purple iris, hypericum berry and other flowers.  The only thing this bouquet is missing is some orange to match Meg’s design.

Flowers (of any kind) brighten any room. It livens up the space with a splash of color and they smell great too!  You can “commission” Gillespie Florists to make you a lovely bouquet for your home or office and I promise it will change your mood for the better!

We sell tons of purple flowers! Purple in general is a very popular color in everyday life so it's not that surprising it is also popular in flowers!  Purple comes in a large range of shades and can be found on the color wheel between red and blue. People like to match purple up in bouquets as a complementary color most commonly but will also use it for monochromatic color schemes.  Typically when a florist creates a monochromatic bouquet, they use several different shades of the same color.

Top 5 Purple Flowers

1.  Purple Rose

It is technically a lavender rose called Cool Water.  This rose is more on the pink side of lavender and sometimes customers request we get a shade that has more blue in it like Ocean Song. We use lavender roses in weddings all the time but also in everyday bouquets because customers love them so much! Customers stop in and hand pick them in our cooler as a wrapped dozen special that is just $19.95 at the moment. We get lavender roses multiple times a week!

2. Iris

We always have purple Iris in stock! It is a wonderful and versatile flower! Customers love Iris because of it deep shade of purple and love how the iris opens over the course of a day or two.  We get multiple shipments a week of Iris to be sure we can keep up with demand.  Iris has a touch of yellow on its petals that show off a great contrast and many times customers will match iris up with yellow roses or gerbera daisies.  Iris comes in the following colors: purple, blue, white and yellow.

3. Daisy

There are gerbera daises and daisy mums. I would say that gerberas are more popular in how much customers like them but we actually sell more stems of daisy mums. The reason for this is: gerbera daisies are $2.50 a stem and daisy mum are a $1.00 at stem.  That is our wrapped Take Out Only price.  Because of the value of the daisy mum, customers like to use our lavender daisy as a complimenting accent flower when creating their bouquet. Customers like to use the Gerbera daisy as feature or focal point flower.

4. Lily

The altroemeria lily is a smaller lily we keep in stock at all times and comes in a large variety of shades of purple. One of my favorites is a white alstroemeria with purple stripes! Customers love this value flower at just a $1.00 a stem (Take out only). It works as a great accent flower in any bouquet! A lot of our DIY brides love to use this flower in their wedding because of the variety of colors and versatility.  Customers can special order large hybrid purple lilies, just call 317.273.1100 for details! A hybrid lily is typically the size of a Star Gazer lily.

5. Larkspur

Larkspur comes in a large range of colors but we order more purple and lavender larkspur than any other shade.  Our designers like to pair up purple larkspur with blue delphinium.  They are very similar flowers in looks with just a slight difference in shade! Customers love this flower because you get a lot of bang for your buck! It is a very tall and skinny flower that will tower above the rest so it will give you great height to your bouquet.

I have customers ask me all the time if we even have any purple flowers. I tell them not only do have purple flowers but we have tons of them! All of the flowers mentioned above are on order every week!

You can also find the following in our cooler in a shade of purple in our cooler:

Carnations, mini-carnations, liatris, statice, limonium, gladiolas, dendrobium orchids, wax flower, stock, tulips,  monte casino aster,  spray rose, heather and so much more!

You never know what you will find in our cooler! Stop by sometime and tour our 500 square foot cooler. If you cannot make it in the store that’s OK! I made a video of all the purple flowers we had in stock.

Click below to view our purple flower video!

 

Click below to shop Purple Flowers on our Website!

 

When I have time to relax and watch a little TV, I love to watch House Hunters! My husband loves to make fun of me for it because we are not moving but I love looking at houses! I love to see the prospective buyers talk about the potential in the home and what they might like to do with the property. I also love to disagree with those buyers and think about what I might do instead.  My favorite part of the show is to try and guess which house they will choose! 

Recently I watched an episode titled: Single in Seattle. It’s about a stylish single guy looking for a very small one-bedroom, one-bath place and he was looking in the downtown Seattle area. He had a crazy budget of $450,000 and I thought for sure he was allowing way too much money. But once they started showing properties, I soon learned prices are much higher in Seattle than they are here in corn filled Indiana.

The property I liked the best was a houseboat. It actually seemed to be very open and airy. But what made it so inviting was a vase of Stargazer lilies sitting on a table in the living area.  It was simple and beautiful! The owner of the house probably just stopped by their local flower shop picked up 3 or 4 stems of Stargazers and popped them into the vase. No greens, no accent flowers, no fuss! It made me wish I had smellevision!

Isn’t it amazing how something so simple can change a room? You don’t have to be having an open house to get flowers! Stop in to your local florist and pick up some flowers to give a room in your house a completely different feel…and smell!

Don’t have time to stop in? No worries! We’ll bring the flowers to you! Just click below to select your room changing bouquet!

  What is it about Zombies that appeals to us? Zombies have been notably popular since the late 19th century and these days are exceedingly popular in these United States! 
Zombies are known for their eating habits- eating human flesh and brains, causing a breakdown of civilization- a Zombie Apocalypse, and looking grotesque with torn clothes, bugs crawling on them and extremities falling off. 
Actually, it's no wonder Zombies like flowers! They need something good in their undead lives, right? This picture to the right is showing an ugly but sad looking Zombie trying to smell a flower, even though he has no nose. Looking at this, You actually feel sorry for this flesh eating creature. Click on the Zombie to see the full image and see the artist's notes on it. 

  This bouquet was a Halloween Special, this is a great depiction of beauty complementing the grotesque. 

I Googled " Zombies like flowers" and came up with tons of content on this. I think people want to see the sensitive side of the Zombie. I think they want to see a being that is remorseful for eating peoples brains. It is a sad and lonely life for the Zombie, they probably ate everyone they know and really I don't see other Zombies being great listeners. 

So, the next time you see a Zombie, don't try to sever his head. Instead, think about how he might have feelings too. Hand him a bouquet of flowers, then while he is enjoying the flowers and smelling them, get a chainsaw and hack off his head. Because though he may have feelings, he won't be able to change his nature and he will still eat your brains!

Need a Zombie distraction? Buy some flowers!


Check out this video: Plants vs Zombies Music Video
Can Zombies be ugly and cute at the same time?

What is the Fuzz that Wuzz?

We found out about a really great product called The Fuzz that Wuzz and had to have it! Mary Meyers created a line of plush stuffed animals made out of plastic bottles! It's incredible to think that these lovely, cuddly stuffed animals were once plastic bottles destined to be sitting in a landfill!

The 411 on the Fuzz

Each Fuzz that Wuzz animal is made from 100% recycled plastic bottles. This means that each animal keeps over 10 bottles out of landfills! Mary Meyers says that two million plastic bottles are used in the U.S. every ten minutes and 51 billion go into landfills annually.

It will take 700 years before plastic bottles in landfills start to decompose and less than 30% of plastic bottles in the U.S. are actually recycled.  Wow, those numbers are staggering!

We recycle here at Gillespie Florists and we encourage for you to do the same! Every time I toss a plastic bottle into our recycle bin, I wonder, will this be an adorable stuffed animal someday? I'd like to think so!

To see this great line of The Fuzz that Wuzz, stop in our store at 10th & Raceway!

Looking for great gift ideas? Check out our website!

  With our Prom season halfway over, we've got a pretty good idea what's hot and what's not for 2011! I wanted to share this with those of you that still have a Prom coming up this year!

 

Top 5 Prom Corsages

1. Three Sweet Heart Rose Wrist Corsage

With three delicate sweet hear roses, sheer hot pink ribbon, silver beads, iridescent leaves and silver glitter tulle this corsage is sure to get the party started! This corsage comes on our free wristlet but you can pick out one of our many keepsake wristlets to go with it instead to remember your perfect Prom Night!

2. Stardust Wrist Corsage

This dendrobium orchid wrist corsage includes green dendrobium orchids, white wax flower, with a simulated diamond pin centering a pin wheel design of black and silver ribbon and zebra ribbon adorned on to a black rhinestone wristlet!

 

 

3. Bauble On Wrist Corsage

This wrist corsage includes three mini carnations, fuschia lazer leaves, iridescent beads, sheer fuschia ribbon on a keepsake large iridescent beaded bracelet!

 

     3. Boho Wrist Corsage

This corsage has three lovely sweet heart roses in a circle design, silver and black sheer ribbon, matching red rhinestone sprays, black lazer leaves and a beaded gunmetal keepsake wristlet!

 

 

5. Three Alstroemeria Wrist Corsage

A great way to have flowers that are a little different with spending a lot of money! This wrist corsage has three alstroemeria lilies with lavender beads, purples leaves, delicate sheer purple ribbon on a white beaded wristlet!

 

The great thing about our prom corsages is that there are thousand of combinations! We have over 100 ribbon choices, dozens of leaf, bead and tulle choices! We of dozens of keepsake bracelets to put your corsage on and most importantly we have hundreds of flower combinations! Best of all, don't see what you need? Just ask! We would love to help you get the perfect corsage for the perfect night!

See the perfect corsage on our site and want to share it with your friends or your date? There's an easy Facebook and Twitter button on each product!

Check out our Top 5 Corsages and more! Click below!

Check out Our Designer Favorites for 2011!

 

 

 

 

Fresh new ideas and colors are sweeping the trends for Valentines Day this year.  With a new resurgence of all the beautiful bright shades of pink being at the forefront and delicate hues of soft ballet pink showing up in several varieties of flowers are destined to create quite a lovely new look to the designs this season.  Look for roses, gerbera's and stargazer lilies as well as the long lasting carnations making a strong showing as they are being presented in beautiful garden style vased arrangements. A great example of this popular style bouquet is seen in our own "Love Speak" Valentines Day designed garden vase.

 Buy Now!

It features lovely and very fragrant Star Gazer Lilies as well as delicate pink roses, carnations and lively larkspur.  It will fill an entire room with fragrance and beauty!

For the more traditional romantics, nothing says "I love you" like a dozen long stem red roses vased all around style with complementary filler of limonium or babies breath.

 Buy Now!

 White roses as well as the various shades of pink are showing up as a strong preference to many of the
the more traditional customers who are often opting to mix several shades of roses together creating quite an eye catching palette in either brights or pastels. 

Here we are showing, in one of our main window displays, a stunning all white arrangement with a reclined angel.

This display window features a contempory garden styled vase featuring several types of flowers and mixed greens.

  

 

 

 

Valentine’s day is just around the corner and romance is in the air.  February is filled with red roses, diamond rings, chocolate and best of all proposals and engagements.  What comes after proposals and engagements…..that’s right, weddings!  This year promises to be an interesting one.  We’re already working hard and studying up on the latest and greatest trends for 2011. 

What are some of those trends, you ask?

 

Here’s a sneak peak at some of the trends you can expect to see. 

Bright, tropical and fun colors are in this year.  Apple green, hot pink, red, orange, yellow, slate grey, aged gold, emerald green and chocolate brown to name a few. 

Say goodbye to over-the-top elegance and hello to a new era of “casual” traditional.

Grooms are going to assist in more of the wedding planning duties to ensure that the big day is a reflection of both people involved. 

The Do It Yourself wedding scene will become mainstream. It’s normal for most brides to custom create at least one element of their wedding.

Family owned-heirlooms are becoming popular additions to wedding designs. One-of-a-kind becomes the “new black”.

Because of the popularity of Friday weddings, venues will likely increase their rental rates.

Keep an eye on our blog for more interesting designs and ideas. 

Want to view some Gillespie Florists wedding bouquets?             Click Here to view our wedding gallery now!

 

Image is courtesy of Stewart Imagery.  Thanks Stephanie!